


Slighted

by Leftleg



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Apologies, Bisexual Eivor, Don't take this too seriously there's a few jokes in there, Established Relationship, F/F, Featuring the elusive Scandinavian bathhouse that we don't have and im sad about, Fluff and Angst, Gift Giving, Guilt, I've not the patience to reread all of that 20 times over skslsk, New Relationship, No Explicit Sexual Content, Nonbinary Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Not Beta Read, Relationship Problems, There are over 10 pages for this entire fic alone, They're just girlfriends, True Love, Yes im going to change the title, almost Shakespearean in the worst way, and that there is suddenly LOTS of crying, basically just like in game lol, bc it's literally so stupid, but I'm going to think of a more fitting one late on, but it gets pretty hot heavy, but only the first chapter is i think, but very few and barely mentioned, guess the books ive been reading by the chapter, i love writing tho :P, if you will, implied infidelity, in fact read it as funny as possible in your head, in fact they might even be married idc, it's my brain and i choose the headcanon fgjgfh, laying down the law, lesbian randvi, might be 5 chapters later, not really dont call me out, of some kind, ok byeee luv you, oops almost forgot, post-game spoilers, sadly i must inform you all that styrbjorn shows up, slighted was the first word i thought of so that's it for now, wingman sigurd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29859960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leftleg/pseuds/Leftleg
Summary: Randvi feels slighted. Eivor tries to make it better.
Relationships: Eivor/Randvi (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 19





	1. Driving off "the spleen"

**Author's Note:**

> WAHHH >>.>> im so nervous actually this is the first thing I've posted in MONTHS!!! wahhh im scared sksksksksk!!!  
> \-----  
> {Based on a situation i thought up after doing Bil's quest post-game udkdf i felt so bad gfkff}  
> \--  
> Wow ending Randvi/Eivor is actually so good idk how ppl were willing to jump the gun and date her beforehand lmao  
> \--  
> Also wanted to add that i have the last* three chapters in the works literally simultaneously lol. I was going to post them all at once but eh I'm impatient and trust me writing like this is hell actually and rereading it is even worse. So ig you can say that i wanted to post this chapter so soon so i could beta the other chapters and you would be 70%correct. Good job that's a C :]
> 
> Chapter 2 tomorrow most like >.<  
> [Update literally a minute after posting but i fixed the tags sýnin does not show up at all]

It began, as it rightfully does, when Eivor got a certain pressure about her neck, a heaviness upon her shoulders and chest that made her breath hard to catch and release, and a sourness of spirit that she could only call a form of home-sicknesses, and that the remedy for that sickness, was to take to the sea and make way for Norway. 

She would never say that she wept for the cold kisses of the bristling winds, the sharp ice that shot along the currents like little daggers, the snow that swamped her legs and boots in chilly, wet whiteness. She did not moan sadly in the night for the iced paths, the freezing waters, the claws of frozen, lifeless, leafless trees that stretched and scratched at the sky above, nor for the loneliness that comes with the feeling of cold. However, she did often find herself in the deep throes of a depression--the light road that had greeted her eyes when she was born and remained until she parted the lands would come to her mind, it's bright greens and yellows that could not be matched by the glasses on the God-houses, the sparkling of lanterns and torches in the cold nights along the walls of cabins doused in snow, the comfort of the image. The thoughts of her father and mother. Of her old stomping grounds-- those things pulled at her not so often when she was busy, but clawed at her when there was none to do.

One day, there was quite literally nothing to do at all. The summer of England was usually nothing to report home on, but it was enough this time around that it was uncomfortable to settle in and impossible to relax in without stripping herself down to bindings and trousers, and she was not so keen on doing such a thing, and the request by Randvi to don a dress was heard and quickly pushed out of her ears. She owned none. Ever since she was old enough to make the decision, she had owned none. 

Eivor had never felt more beautiful or lovely or feminine when she had to wear them at the behest of her parents, and they only served to make her feel like a dog in breeches and boots, unable to move how she pleased and forced to keep the damn thing from the ground. For a time, she even envied other girls that wore them, especially Tora, beautiful Tora she had once loved deeply, who wore her dresses well and looked as beautiful as fine Freya when she did, despite being a warrior just as she. It had made her feel too strange, too uncomfortable, too different from her peers that it made her sick in the stomach and irritable. Still now, while her feelings were mellowed and not so extreme, she still rejected them solely to avoid the still present sickening feeling they put within her. 

Therefore, Eivor ignored the idea, but claimed she was not opposed to seeing her fair lover wear one. A confession that brought Randvi's smile bright on her lovely features. Yes, it was early in the morning and still the heat came creeping in the walls, and the sticky sweat that began to settle between their bodies under the furs was enough to wake up and pry themselves from one another. Neither dressed just yet in their day clothes, Randvi could be called nude despite the hanging of her lover's tunic upon her shoulders, as her entire uniform was shucked off many hours ago. Sunset colored hair fell straight along her back, few strands deviating from the fall where she instinctively pushed her bangs rightward. She wore no bands, straps, jewels, or chains, no heavy mail beneath her clothes, no trousers or leggings on her legs, no boots on her feet, and certainly, no weapons on her hip-- she was practically as naked as she could be if you were not familiar with the expanse of skin beneath one's clothes.

Either way, they had woken, parted, and spoke in quiet whispers in Eivor's chambers. Randvi searched almost futilely for fine light clothes to wear so that she did not burst into orange flames in the sun, and Eivor only watched her do so from their now shared bed. After jests and useless pulling of garments from the chest they had dragged in there, Eivor suggested that if they could not find good clothes to wear, then by the gods they could at least be clean in the nude. A request for a morning bath.

"Hmph," Randvi had made a little, thoughtful noise as she studied another garment, deemed it alright for the day, and joined her lover on the bed. "That sounds tempting." She smiled, hooked her arms around Eivor's neck, and touched the edge of viking's jaw gently with the flat of her fingers. "Will you be joining me?"

"Someone must wash your back," The blonde snaked her hands to her love's waist, smoothed along the smooth of her hip and touched the soft skin of her thigh. "and comb your hair," she leaned forward until their temples touched and their noses brushed, a breathless laugh fell from her lips, Eivor's heart fluttered when Randvi's hand found its way to her hair and tangled her fingers in the sunbeam locks. "and get all those spaces you cannot reach yourself." 

They kissed then, Eivor swooping down upon her dearest. The pair forgetting, for just a moment, of the rising heat of this strangely warm summer's day, lost in the touch of smooth lips, the slight scratch of morning chap, the taste of their tongues, the beating of their hearts between them, and the sweat of excitement and arousal-- yes, what a way to start the morning! The first taste of a long day being your finest, best lover! How a blessed day must begin that way, how a person's year could sweeten tenfold if they greeted the mornings with the sweet kisses of their lover, no matter what the day would later bring! The kiss of a true love was enough to bring the dead from their graves, imagine the effect for those still living! Oh, how these kisses linger and pull you home, back into your lover's embrace!

And they bathed, and those promises were fulfilled! A cold bath it had to be, yet the cold water was welcome on their breasts and thighs, the scented oils that slicked their palms rubbed with massaging circles into the skin of their backs and chest and arms! They spent more time exploring the slickness of their bodies than perhaps intended. They did all you can think: kissing, holding and rubbing, braiding and brushing-- so soon they left the bath in their day clothes, and soon after (let us remember that this is a day wherein our dear Eivor was tense bout the neck), they ate their breakfast, spoke at length and fell into comforting silences, enjoying that early morning and the coolest that it would be that day.

It was after, yes after, that the tension between Eivor's shoulders became tight, her hands felt itchy with desire to work, and the sickness of boredom came to her, and as it is but the mistress of that emotion,a somber depression settled onto her. She was but a tool without purpose! A jarlskona that had helped nurture a community that was more together than it was ever at odds, which meant no counsel would be needed anytime soon. Her crew were busy amongst themselves and Randvi had made clear to her lover that the best thing for her to do, was to find an adventure to keep herself busy. 

Now well, how was she to busy herself when the order had been taken care of and her services no longer needed for Hytham and his strange brotherhood? And what of raiding when she and her fitful crew have stomped their boots through every monastery and saxon camp that yielded goods? There was no Soma, Ubba, or Ivarr to bother or be of use to, and by Hel's rotting arse, she would not bother herself with trying to enjoy Saxon company! The men were too light for her and their women not so exciting. 

What are you to do, when there is none to do and you have done all you could, have seen all there was to see, and bested all there was to best and better? Why, you find adventure elsewhere, of course! And my what a thought that touched her! She had many places to go that were beyond this greenery called England-- Vinland and her old home of Norway to name two-- and while she considered the trip to Vinland to see her beautiful people and the beautiful lands that stretched before her, she found that the trip would take much longer than her uselessness would last, and therefore by the time she arrived she would be wanting to return. She also did not wish to worry her kin and clan with a months long disappearance. Days and weeks away were expected when she traveled across England without her crew and just the weapons on her back and her horse, but months would be ridiculous! They would sooner pronounce her dead before she made it halfway there!

So thus, the simple answer was Norway. She need not tell why exactly she be going, for any reason that could be thought up would be enough to excuse suddenly returning to your birthplace, which was very good since she did not have an inch of a hair of a reason for leaving that Randvi (dearest, good Randvi!) could not talk her down from, breaking her little plan into the simplest of terms and it's smallest bits, so that Eivor could agree that it was in turn not worth the trouble. 

Still though, a guilt slid down her neck alongside her sweat, and she told her dearest that she would be going and where. She took Randvi by her supple a waist, (peace and good hoards settled finely about her hips in a way that made her very fine to hug and hold whenever one had the chance to!) rest her chin on her shoulder, and mumbled almost apologetically (as if it were out of her control to go and, in turn, an inconvenience to her lover) of her plans to take a week or two back on the homeland. Randvi had asked her why she must and why it seemingly upset her, to which Eivor only told that she missed the place and wanted to see it once more. 

"Before I forget." She said with a peck to Randvi's warm cheek, "It is good to return to your roots. Humble yourself and remind yourself of what made you roam to begin with."

She knew that Randvi would agree, and agree she did. 

"You may go." She said, twisting in Eivor's arms so that she could meet her chest with her own and put her sturdy hands on her decorated visage. She looked deeply into Eivor's eyes, relished in their depth, their luster and clarity, the lovely color that not even nature could match apart from massive ice shards and frozen rivers. "You will go swiftly, you will go safely, and you will go with my love. And you will return just the same. I promise this."

"I promise this as well. In all my actions, I will remember you and these words we shared. My axe will be light, be sharp and quick, my crew mighty and strong-- my ship and sail without holes, my armour laced and tight. I will step with care. I will step with love. I will step and I will sail with your spirit at my back, your words in my mind, your hands in mine. I promise you."

This satisfied them both, for it was all true. Ever since it became clear in their minds and in the stars and wind that it was truly the two of them together, being called back to one another, to the care and counsel of one another, Eivor had made every step towards the path most quickest home. The quickest back to this woman that she now claims as close to her as a man claims his wife. To her voice, to her reasonings, to her steady mind and person, rarely moved unlike herself, that kept our Eivor fine and stuck to this realm of living. 

They pressed their heads together, and held that way for some time, for parting is always such sweet, terrifying sorrow for those in as deep in love and understanding of the uncertainty and dangers of the world as these two.


	2. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seeking somewhere to be of use, Eivor goes home to Fornburg with a fire in her belly, and then leaves with a fire at her feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi! wow did i have a summary for the last chapter? No clue but that matters none, right? Anyway,can you believe that i have been spelling Stavanger wrong??? I'm so sorry if you live there i spell things (sometimes) the way I talk so when i say it i throw in an extra 'r' in the beginning as well as being stupid as hell and throwing an 'e' in there too ("Starvenger") I'm sorry!!  
> \--  
> Also, i hope the Tora thing is not confusing? Idk how many people read/are reading the comic, but Eivor once upon a long time ago had a friend named Tora Auzoux that helped her essentially doom the kingdom. I did not just make her up skdkjshdkj I read only a small portion of it so far hence why i dont say MUCH about her (hell, they could probably not even be real friends lol but that matters not when you have a crush on someone right?)  
> Oh btw, If youre reading on your phone, you might want to turn it landscape when you get to the Styrbjorn scene.  
> Im going to come back and fix this up but I wont add more bc it's EXTREMELY long. It's currently 6 am and i wanted this finished yesterday. Sorry for any spelling mistakes i HAD to get this out of drafts. I'll be back :◇

Separation is a brutal sting in the heart. It is a smarting bruise on the body. Yet, we do it, and we have not yet found ourselves not doing it. 

We wander, we roam, we go where our feet and hearts carry us and think little on where and how far. There is no greater pain than leaving and there is no better elation than returning. 

It was not as if this was the first time Eivor and her crew made the journey, not by a longshot, but that did not make it any easier, especially now, when she had people looking up to her and a lady awaiting her arrival. The new weight of this life she and her fellows had rightfully wrested from the grips of cold kings and useless Englishmen, had made her partings feel like a slow burn of an iron brand on the palm, and her returns like the first breath of a newborn and the first warm wind of spring. 

It is very different this time, as I've said, yet that does not deter her. In fact, this new feeling pushes her towards her ship more. She believes quite selfishly that her being away would allow her necessity back home to pile on, for surely it always happens that way, does it not, that when you are not looking, the very thing that you had searched for miraculously appears? 

Randvi does an old practice. She stands tall and mighty beside Eivor on the docks, watching as the crew readies and settles itself in their respective seats, fastening their buttons and varies doo's and da's, they talk amongst themselves while sparing quick, tepid glances to their jarl and her woman. They themselves are still unsure of the nature of their relationship, which was indeed a very hot topic in their small community, and often the whispers ranged from realistic to idealistic to plain fantastical-- wherein Eivor The Mighty _snatched_ Randvi's seemingly cold heart from her husband with her brawn and beauty, or that Sigurd was but a cuckold that reveled in the strange pleasure of having his noble wife bed another, but was too conservative to have her stray too far, and thus chose his foster sister to take the place of a stranger. They offered, for that certain rumor’s conclusion, that at some point the weak plan turned on its head when the two women fell in love. 

Of course, these rumors and stories were kept far from the family's ears, for there was a deep fear of invoking not just the righteous anger of wild Eivor, but the cold fury of disturbed Sigurd and calm Randvi. There was an air mainly about the siblings that made it quite unpalatable to speak too loudly with their theories and small gripes, even with the polite reassurances from the jarlskona that she would hear their pains, no matter how small or complex. Funnily enough, it became that good Vili was soon more sought after for a raw tale or two about the family than any song-bearing skald, for they all were keenly aware of his closeness to them. 

Vili, as devoted as he is vulgar, would not give them play that would justify any strange rumors, but he would give enough that would bring their ideas of the two back into the realm of humanity and realism. He knew Eivor as he knew the ravines of his hands, Sigurd like the valleys of a great desert, but very little of Randvi, however. He had not a clue as to how they all figured that he was well versed in youthful Randvi, and would only tell what little he would get from Eivor's young lips when they were still toying with Kjotve’s dogs.

He was _versed_ in Sigurd though, but in a way that would cause more scandal than the admittance was worth. Yes, the implication is there, for it was sometime after he had joined Ravensthorpe and subsequently the Wolf-Kissed's warband, that he had confided in her brother some of his woes. He did not know why he wanted to exactly, perhaps he found it too embarrassing to speak on what was between them after the incident in the Hovel, and did not want to question if his touch lingered on her skin as hers on his or if she would recall the smell of his hair or the feel of his body when she found herself warm before bed as he would often do about her, and therefore settled with speaking to brooding Sigurd on the dock. Sigurd had listened so intently that night, that Vili could not help but return again the next night and the one that followed to share more of his aching soul and the woman that caused the grief, just so that he could have such a compassionate yet firm gaze fall on him. Why, it sooner made his heart flutter than it did ease his heartache! 

Next he knew, they were sitting closer and saying little, just hums and nods in response to the other's crying venting-- how passionately Sigurd spoke on his Randvi (or, as he knows it now, _Eivor's_ Randvi) and his pride for his dear sister, how his eyes shone in the starlight! No, it is not hard to imagine the heft of the air between two that have shared their souls equally (he assumes, however, that there is more within Sigurd yet that he has not said), beneath the pinprick spots in the midnight cloth of the evening, nothing but their voices and the voices of nature around them, and it is not hard to imagine that there was a fine fire between their persons that week!

Ah, but that matters not! Vili's passions of his soul are not so important here! What is, however, is what he knows, what the crew believes he knows, and what the crew wants him to say. They are not at all the same, with variations between them all.

As they finished their preparations for the journey ahead back home, Vili could not shut his ears quick enough to not catch the whispers between two gossiping Vikings. 

> _"See how they stand? So close!"_
> 
> _"They are merely standing! Their shoulders do touch but that means not that their hands do or their lips."_
> 
> _"But look! See there, how fair Randvi reddens in her cheeks at just that touch! Look, how Eivor Jarlakona smiles at her when they speak! I see it!"_

He could not help the roll of his eyes and the bitter twang of annoyance on his tongue. He never enjoyed gossip and rumor of such a personal matter, for it was never at all a stranger's business as to what occurred between the furs of other strangers, and it was but one gripe of his with living in such close communities. He did not enjoy the gossiping ninnies of yore in Stavanger, always going on and on among their work about this maiden and that man or this king and some others wife, and he did not enjoy it in Hemthorpe either. This person has become Christian, this revoked their God, this one has sired this child, and so on! If it were not pertinent to the safety of the people or a weakness of the enemy, by the gods, who gave a horse's arse?!

He had the mind about him to scold them, until he heard more, a laughing jeer from pompous Rollo and gruff Bjorn.

> _"I know it, Bjorn! When she walked into the brothel and did not turn away from the women, nude as they were! Hah, I knew it then!"_
> 
> _"It is fair. There is no problem, I think."_

_"But it is!"_ Said young Rollo, which put a tenseness in Vili's chest to hear from a youth. If it had never been issue for Hemming or Styrbjorn or even Sigurd, how could Rollo find one? _"It is! She is too beautiful-- she will take all the fine women from us!_ " He then groaned in a way that spoke more that he was upset that he would never have a chance _with_ her instead of _against_ her. It is when Brina clapped his shoulder and Bjorn gruffed a laugh, that Vili's _"services"_ were called forth. 

Eivor and Randvi had begun speaking closer, laughing and cheery, their faces so close that it almost seemed that they would kiss at any moment in sheer joy at another's presence. It put sweet happiness in his chest to see, as he was much too familiar with her deep frowns and dark thoughts. To see her in high spirits by only something so simple as this closeness...why, if they were lovers or merely friends (although he knows it true that they are very happily both, by way of her own admittance and Sigurd's theory after his announced divorce), then let them have it! Let them, for what greater a sight than that of true love?

"What do you think, Hemmingson?" Asked another to him, her hand on his shoulder and a very twisted smile. With a distaste in his mouth, he ignored the familiarity (one must not be unfamiliar with those whom he sleeps and works with, but it is only human to not enjoy being touched at random). He also could not remember her name for the life of him, and dear reader I must say that her visage was not that of great importance to make up for the lack of beauty there, and therefore it will be a disservice to bore you with a description. 

Vili knew, scornfully so, that his opinion mattered as much as a singular drop of blood in the great seas of the world, and that the _"question"_ was only to make him feel as if that were being asked of him. He was no fool, however, knowing exactly what they all wanted him to say: _"They are lovers, true and true."_ Was what was sought after, and it was ever the opposite that he would give them.

"I am not sure." He said as they all watched the two finally part ways with bright smiles, their hands lingered on one another as the distance grew between them, strong hands traveled indignantly from bicep to elbow to forearm and then at the fated palms, their fingers locked for a moment, then released in sad parting. "I see a pair of good friends. Women," He starts as their jarl hops into the ship and upsets the water, as she encourages them and takes her helm, "they are naturally close. They revel in the touches of their sisters and daughters, and take great joy in familial and friendly caressing of fellow ladies." He adds as he and the warrior take up their oars and push through the waters. 

"I have seen women share sweet kisses and handholds with the freedom that a husband would to his wife, and be nothing more than just friends. It is strange how badly you all wish for a scandal."

* * *

Ah, Norway! Dearest, freezing Fornburg! 

Four winters later, and she looked no different than when they had left, the poor place!

To see it again, however, in all her familiar glory, put a deep pang in the hearts of all of her Jomsvikings, who while not all from this place that their jarl once called home, had at some point known the country as their own, and to see it again was nothing short of gripping. 

How the idea of Stavanger in the blue distance excited Vili! How it sung in his chest, put moths in his belly, and a small tear to his eye, for the memory was so great and the times so long and eventful. Yes, while their old home changed little in their absence, they had changed drastically in hers. New people they all were, rebirthed from their glory and winters in England, so alien almost they all felt back here, that some were brought to paralyzing fear at docking and sick to their toes at setting foot upon the study wood that separated them from the ice water below.

But Eivor, dashing, beautiful Eivor, was spry! She leaped from her ship as if a fire were lit at her heels, landed hard yet strong on the wood, and smiled so brightly, Sol herself should be ashamed to call herself the sun! She faced her men, and thundered with a jovial sound: “My raiders! We have come for not a reason, but oh does it not feel great to be here? Home again? Ah, but I know,” She says with a clap of her gloved hands, the leather making the sound more sturdy than her bare palms could, “some of you have not been born here. Some of you only know tales from your parents. Ah, but there is nothing like it, smelling the air of your old home. I would show this place, my English Norsemen, but this is where we part. This place, my old home, where once you may say I had been a princess and my brother a prince and our father a king, but that is the past. You will find a different experience than what I knew. Either way, I part with you here. There are places here that will meet your needs, but I will not be here to show them to you.” 

Her eyes are fond, soft in gaze as they are in color, and they settle on Vili, her go-to for these types of things, for she knows he cannot resist her demands, especially those to hear himself talk and those that would prove his might against his fellow men. “However, Vili is here with you. Pester him all you can so that he may show you things that interest you. Bug him, until he breaks rank and take my ship to where enemies still lift sword and shield, but do,” she adds with a smile as his face darkens with the weight of responsibility upon him when this was meant to be a ‘vacation’ of sorts for them all, yet he smirks still at her humor and her smile and her clever trick. “Make sure that the thing returns in one piece.”

With that, she leaves them with a spin on her heels and the trudging of her men behind her as they eagerly do as she says, despite the fact that they are equally allowed to do what they pleased, so long as they do not cause a blight on her name. Poor Vili, who is not her lieutenant in any way but has been given the duty in her leave ( _glory to those that recall childhood promises! For Vili had always wanted to be under Eivor as a warrior and later, when older, as a lover!),_ and as such was also put on duty watch her raiders as if they were pups in a pen, a mother hen over her children, and was thus then bound to abstain from too much drink and too much roaming. He was in charge of her ship, however, and could very easily round some of them to steer it towards his old stomping grounds, reacquaint himself with the place and mark on what had changed, then package it all later in a letter to Tyrgve when they ultimately returned home. But for now, he watched her from the docks as she strolled away and greeted her old friends that had stayed and the children that had grown, as the last of the raiders went on to explore this old place and find drinks to warm themselves from the unfamiliar chill in their bones. He put his hands on his hip, shook his head, and went on his own way, already catching some troublesome Vikings starting to worry the nerves of Harold’s patrol.

Now, let's for a moment, become Eivor! 

If you were her, oh what you do first? Do what you did not before, of course! Do what you were afraid of doing, go where you were afraid of going! So, as if you were she, she called upon her trusty Synin, watched as the dark blotch in the sky circled above then went onwards towards adventure, the vowed to follow after her, as a sinking nostalgia befell her. She cursed herself for her longing pains, and went first upon the search again for her foster-father, fearing that he be drowning himself into a stupor again (a fall, she thinks, like a great tree after being struck at the base, was what fell this old Styrbjorn) and hope that her sudden arrival would shock him into sobriety for her small visit. The last she had been there, well, things were not so loose, so...cheerful. Not when Sigurd attacked the old man with his words, not when she was to stand idly by and watch on as their father grew older and older, wearier and wearier beneath her brother’s harsh criticisms. It pained her then to watch such a scene, but she was no innocent in that either, as her name was pulled when he relayed her supposed theft all those winters ago. Still, it rests on her tongue that she should have been owed those riches, king or no, for it was her blood-feud, her axe that drew that blood, and her rage that won them to begin with, but that was a long past argument that would hold no bearings any longer. What use to think on it after the supplies were used and the riches spent on their new home? What use to bring about the past and be sour, when it was all behind them. Too much had gone by now, that would render such a thing beyond useless, so she would save it for another time when she ultimately saw the man.

She first went towards the mead hall, wherein her raiders sat amongst the citizens, and saw him not there. She thanked the offer for a moment of drink and rest, and went on her way. If he not there, then he must be inside the longhouse, thought she, and so that was her next destination. 

In her father’s depression, he had the doors closed. A rare sight it was, for all her winters of calling the place home, she could but count on one hand the times she had seen the thing boarded up like so, and they were all during the harshest storms of winter. What was she to do then, but to try to push at them or even clamber up the shell and fall in, as she would do to sneak past the watchful gaze of her father when she had stayed out too late with her friends causing mischief around the land? Why, with all of Harold’s men about, she certainly did not (and how it pains to say this) want to start a row amongst so many innocents, so knock she did. As hard as she could, she knocked the wood and heard it echo pathetically inside. She would have given up then on finding him, if behind the thing came a very weary sound, like that of a wheezing wind between broken beams, that bid her push and push hard, so that it open to her. 

Great Synin, the pretty bird that she is, gave a caw of a laugh when her master was left to the duty of pushing a great door as this, before swooping down in all her lovely obsidian color, onto the rafters of the place. Her master gave her a little glare. “Laugh again.” She remarked bitterly as she heaved again, and, as if though she understood and was all the more humored for it, cawed again and once more, in two short bouts of laughter. 

The door gave way, just enough to welcome her inside, armor and all, and she slipped in quickly before the door found its weight and rumbled closed. 

How lonely the inside! How dark too, with the torches still aflame even, the curved walls were bathed in dark shadows that had at once terrorized her when she was small and Mani not seen above to give pale light to ease her worries, how grand and terrible the mammoth head sat in this partial darkness, small parts illuminated by a candle flame, its huge tusks foreboding as it reached out its curved bones far beyond it and its hollow sockets looked forever on emptily. At one point, she would make her father cross by sitting in the bend, swing her legs and smile in play as the man would demand her come down before she hurt herself of bring the whole thing down over her and himself. Sometimes, back then, Sigurd would join her and sometimes he would scold her. When Randvi came, it seemed all he did was scold her when his wife was present, then run to her side when his wife had asked for some solitude. When Randvi came...she blushes deeply at the thought! Yes, when Randvi came, they were both so young, and Eivor found her so beautiful and mysterious yet aggravating in her deep silences, that she would find herself nearly bullying the girl to give her attention, or watching her from a distance. Even Tora would have a laugh at her behavior and Dag too, then, before claiming she be nicer. 

But digression it is that memory does host, and she looked around the darkness for the wheezing little sound that told her enter, and found him in a seat away from his forgotten throne. He ate in darkness, sat in darkness, wallowed in it all over himself so pitifully, that it was foreign to her. It also emboldened her to have a resolved that if she find herself beat like this, alone and sad to the core, she would take who she could that would come with her, and find another place to be in a commune, even if that meant as little as Randvi, and her friends of Sigurd and Vili, the clothes on their back and the weapons on their hips, then so be it. Anything but this here!

It appeared that he was unaware of whom he had welcomed in, and if that were not the case and he did know, then it was rather insulting that he not even look at her. Part of her wondered, just for a second, if the man had been so far gone in his desolation, that he had taken to hearing and answering spirits. If that be the case, then she would sooner shove him onto her ship and cart him to Ravensthorpe than to take up another dark thought against him! No father of hers, foster, figurative, or blood-related, would be beset by spirits! 

She approached, put upon her face a stern frown, chastising him only in feature, and said lowly: “Old man.”

First, his head turned slightly, eyes bleary from the dark with just a lowly candle for immediate light, then he blinked, eyes widening. Surprise! Written upon his face clear as day, he stared with eyes as round as saucers, mouth agape as if prepared to say a speech or simply her name, but was stuck between them both. Not the first at all that she rendered the old man speechless, time and time again in her youth and very much so before their departure, did her mischief and her wit cause him to lose his voice and swell his tongue with too many words to say at once.

“Old man,” She said again, raising her chin ever slightly, he still watched her in awe, “have you taken to being a bat or do you fancy yourself an inhabitant of Niflheim? This darkness is the stuff of the dead.”

Styrbjorn’s mouth closed and his eyes narrowed sharply. “And here I thought you were apparition until you opened your mouth. You are as real as they come.” He took a long drink from his mug, made like he wanted to douse the flame then decided against it, and let his broad shoulders fall with a deep sigh. “Why have you come again? To mock me once more? Have my son attack me here in my only place of solitude? Or did you come to steal from me once more?”

She involuntarily scrunched her nose at him but made no note of her disdain for his attitude. He ought to be lucky she did not bring Sigurd along, or else he get another decimating word-thrashing. She did not say so, however, and took a seat before him, tsking at his demeanor. 

“What part would you like for me to answer first, Father? I have only one mouth to answer you with.” She leaned forward, her elbows on the old wooden table. If she could guess with ninety-percent surety, she would guess this is the one she carved her name into alongside a few other names of those she found she wanted to love one day, hoping that what Sigurd’s stupid words of _‘If your names have enough matching runes, then you are destined to be together’_ rang true. Yes, childhood foolishness, she had carved many there, some in great hope of love and some in desperate pleadings of the fates that it never come to pass. If she were to touch beneath the table and feel for it, she would find the carvings of:

> **E I V O R** **E I V O R** **E I V O R** **E I V O R** **E I V O R**
> 
> **T O R A = II V I L I = II** **U L N A = 0** **R A N D V I = III D A G = 0**

She remembers her shock too (and would laugh at it when she is curled with her love back home) when she found she and Randvi were apparently fated to be due to the runes of their names and disappointed that she was apparently, to only have unexplorable chemistry with Tora and Vili, though she was pleased for a time that he would not be her husband. 

Interested in how well her memory could be, she slid her hand beneath the table as her father grumbled about her smartness of mouth and how he always detested it, and raised her brows quickly when her finger touched a deep etching. She traced it while Styrbjorn keep speaking, and found that her finger had indeed found and followed the runes of Vili’s name. She could laugh, but did not. It was when her father stopped speaking, that she paid attention to him. He frowned, and she noticed that his face had become very set by wrinkles in her leave, that his beard though orange in the light of the flames, had silvery hairs mixed between bushels of red, and that beneath his eyes were the bruises of wakefulness.

“I see not much has changed. You listen to what you wish and ignore what does not interest you. I could pour my soul to you, and you would not listen, but if I were to say I know a place of riches, your ears would perk like a mutt.”

Eivor gave him a weak smile. No amount of age could make the sting of being scolded not so sharp, but she was well mature from her boisterous young self that would roll her eyes and sigh at his chastising, and certainly was she too old to be told to retrieve a fine switch from yonder tree and bring it forth to have her hands smarted for her blatant disrespect, but verbal lashings would always sting as the backs of her hands once had. 

“That is true for us all. You did not want to hear what Sigurd and I had to say for the betterment of this land and for our clan, but heard readily the utterances of that king of yours. As one does not hear the begging of orphans but does the tinkling of silver, we are no different in that respect.” She sighed, the candle flickered at her puff, burning quickly as it reached the mid of its long body. “But I did not come here to argue, Old man. I came to see you, make sure you were still with us.”

“What difference would it make if I were not? I will die here and you will not know until they have long since put me on my pyre. Then, you may even rejoice at my departure.”

Her frown deepened, offended at such a heartless statement. Yes, they did not get along so well, but he had still been her father for most of her life. If she wept silently for Hemming, then how she would become tearful over Styrbjorn, for then she would know that her past life, her youth, and her growing age are indeed dead with her parents all. She would not only cry for him, but for the memories he would take with himself that she could not remember but knew well that he did, for all good fathers that are hard on their children love them so, and as such, remember many things of the kids they love. 

“Do not speak of me as though I am some heartless creature. You were my father once, and I will weep for you all the same as you have done when we worried you to think us dead. You are cross still, but I am not. I came true enough to visit and see you again before you _do_ pass on.”

Then there was a heavy bout of silence. He stared hard at her, his fatty fingers tapped the tabletop most anxiously, then he cracked a poor attempt at a smile. 

“I am, as you said, an old man. An old wretched man that sees no light in the world. You must understand,” He said grasping his mug again, peering inside to test its fullness then placing it away. “This decision I have made was for safety, and I will not ever claim otherwise. Losing the kingdom I wanted to give to my only son was a hard weight to carry, but I could live without it. There is nothing that matches a father’s pain of losing his children not to death but to age and life.” He opened his hands, stared at his palms, and Eivor did the same, recalled when there was a time he had used those hands to pull her back from her own dangerous thoughts, push her into bettering herself, and held her so that she could take a break and watch the world around her. Yes, they did not get along well, I say again, but he was her father once. "Nothing like it all. 

She reached out, touched his palm with her fingers. His hand was cold, from the darkness, from age, from the air itself she could not point out which, but it did not matter for her hands were warm and she would share her warmth with him. 

“It has been hard, being alone here. My people, the ones I loved the most, left with you. When I knew that you were sure of your trip and there was none I could do to stop you...my heart shattered. My emotions became blank, I lost my fight, my will, my strength to lead, to make demands. I thought then: _‘What is there to this life if I do not have the love of my children? What life is it, where a father is reduced to a stranger to those he raised, those he knows best of all?’_ , and I found that it is no life at all. This is no life. I am but a shell walking, my spirit has long since abandoned me. It abandoned me when you left.”

He seems to weigh her hand in his, eyes it woefully even, and his face conflicts with itself to make either a face to show his deep hurt, or stay stoic as he can so that he face no jeers. She says nothing, curls her fingers against his and holds them as she would if she were that little child again, alone in the world, tormented within her own little mind. His tears, at some point, win him over, and for the first, she had ever seen, the old man shed his tears as ice sheds its layers under the sun

“My child,” He moans most pitifully, “I have treated you so terribly. I have treated you both so terribly, that you left me alone here. Left me alone to wither and die in this dark place, surrounded by your past whispers.” He sniffs furiously, closes his eyes as a poor means to stop his tears, but it only paves way for more and more. He lifts his hand with her’s in it, rests his other over them both, and puts his temple against her knuckles. “I live so little.” He cries. “I live so little, a worm has more life than I.”

She stayed with the elder for what felt like ages. Relayed to him all the things that had come to pass in their new home, in England as a whole, yet she kept her tongue very sharp about her to tell him that she had taken his son's lovely wife, or even that they were divorced. It was not for his ears to hear that, the poor man would have a heart attack as soon as the words left her lips. She did, however, tell him that she had found herself a lover, someone wonderful and awesome, that to look upon her directly was to bless your eyes and give you life eternal. That to touch her hand was to make your wounds never ache again or your skin grow cold, that her lips were things of finest making that would put those dutiful trolls to shame! It embarrassed her in the happiest of ways to pour her heart upon the table before him and say these wondrous things about her sweetheart, and she was soon blushing so red and her tongue so tied with praises and love-laced descriptions, that the longhouse felt no brighter or warmer than if a great fire had sprung up in the center of it. How she loved her Randvi! And how proud she was to say the Randvi loved her too! 

How proud, how hot, how magnificent, to be loved and to love with so much of your heart it does hurt to be apart! 

And how it seemed then, that for the first time in a very long time, Styrbjorn was happy with her. Happy _for_ her. In his wintry years that he so early claimed were dark, that he could see no light in, as he touched her hand and sent her on her way when she found that she must walk and cool herself in the air as her love was burning inside her, and they stood at the doors of the longhouse, he gave her the fondest smile he had ever given, and told her very happily that he was pleased with her. Pleased with the life she had begun to lead, the glory she had won for herself, the family she had cultivated with the same charms that so often used to drive him mad--he was pleased, said that had Varin and good Rosta been there to hear her words and see her spirit, they would weep tears of joy and be just as pleased as he, tenfold. 

She found then, after they had parted, that it was dark. The light roads gleamed brightly over her head, snaking along the night sky with its wonderful greens and yellows and fading blue, that she remembers how she missed it. How she missed seeking solace in the white mountains at that old, forgotten cabin that overlooked it all and watch those lights overhead. She would dream, sometimes, of hearing the hooves, the mighty wings of those beautiful warrior women as they carted off the slain to Odin's hall, and even, once many winters ago, that she had seen them there, trotting fast on the green roads, her father and her mother being whisked away from her for eternity. That was before she doubted. Before she found herself devout in Odin's law, that his axe had been taken and he earned his cowardly place in Hel's realm. So foolish she was back then, to feel so bitterly, but what other feeling was she to have? She was angry at the world, angry at her father being tricked, angry that it was Kjotve that killed him, angry that her mother did not hold her and save her--what other way was she to cope with the loss of her parents in such an unforgiving world as this, than to cover her sorrow in anger and hatred? It was, and it will always be, easier to hate those that you love when they have left you behind than it is to despair over them. Men do not mock you for your anger but do laugh at your sadness. A weak emotion they call it! But if it so hard to live through, how weak can it be? Anger, she learned through trial and error, always comes quickest in times of great weakness. Does that not make that rage an emotion for the truly weak?

She would not dwell, she reasoned, on the harsh subject. She had visited her old home ages ago, rotten, iced over Heilboer, and vowed she not do it again. A darkness fell over that place she once loved, and that darkness was enough to draw out the turbulent emotions of a fate-cursed child, confused at how harsh the world truly was and why it had to be her home, and her clan, and her parents, that be taken. Of all little girls in Midgardr, why her? She would not dwell.

She was not tired, so she opted for a little walk to bring drowsiness upon her, and so made way for the falls north of the town. What sound it made! What chill it gave, but nonetheless, how peaceful a place it was to settle the nerves and relax the mind. Have you ever heard the steady torrent of water drumming into the deep pool below as if a heartbeat of a mother? Or the trickling sounds the draining stream made as it carried off the excess down the rocky, snow-covered hill towards the sea? Have you ever rested your aching bones to the sounds of a thundering waterfall? If not, do! Do and see how quickly you are moved to your bed and your pillow, how the chill moves you to your blanket and you wrap yourself cozy warm, sighing contentedly to the natural song of peace! Do, I beseech you! Have some peace in your life, especially when you sleep, my readers!

Ah, but here is the story! Yes, the story, finally, of what has made this tale be birthed to begin with: As Eivor walks the path from the sleepy town of Fornburg, and up the half frozen-half soft turf of the path leading up and away from the gentle, resting people, she hear a voice. A voice? Yes! A voice not unfamiliar to her, or to many of the residents past and current of this part of Norway. A calling, feminine voice, mature and coquettish, she calls in the cold night air (and I, Reader, must tell you that I am but paraphrasing for sake of time and redundancy): _"I have lost my comb! Precious thing it was, I swear 't round here! I swear!"_ , and upon her life, our dear Eivor was only trying to be chivalrous and helpful to the lass; the woman named Bil. 

Bil, as Eivor once knew her before this day, was merely the town's plaything, but she would not make it so easy to 'toy' with her or be 'toyed' with by her. No, she made each meeting be prefaced with a game of wit and skill. A flyt here, but mostly lost trinkets there and everywhere she could toss them or bury them or shove them, and if you were the finest of the suitors to come about, find her little thing and win her favor, she would offer you a reward. The trinket that was found, most often, but as an extra thanks for your 'help', she would offer personalized rewards. 

However it was that Eivor had only heard it by rumor, and rumor is often not the best way to find information about a person, and thus did not believe the tales of this weird albeit creative methods of having 'fun'. So, as she heard the playful cries for her comb and the reminder that it was missing (though, to Eivor, it sounded of genuine, removed worry, strangely enough), Eivor trudged the hill to the waterfall, gazed at it, and saw the shadow of searching men amongst the snow, and then approached calling Bil, distressed, despairing Bil, and asked her for the full of her plight. Her comb she had lost around this here area, buried in the snow or swallowed by the water, she herself knew not, and so she sent word out over small letter, asking for help to seek it out. Eivor had nodded, she was a fine one to come across this task! Synin and her sight be of use to her, she would find the trinket in no time!

She first went up to the top of the falls where she saw the other men searching, and gave sight. If it were around there as Bil said, then surely they would have found it by then! And the snow did not become so deep in so few hours that one's comb would go missing as soon as it fell from the purse, and so it could not have been buried so deep. Bil claimed that it was _around_ there, and if were not _up there_ then it certainly had to be _down there_ with her! A small trick it would be, to watch as they scoured around in search of this little thing only for it to be on her person, and how humored that would make her now to be fooled so easily, but something had told her that that was not the trick at all. She went back down the hill to where Bil sat giggling at the confusion she had stirred, and used her sight for a hint to assist her. There, out the corner of her left eye, a pulsing blue came about, and there she found a letter, written in the most delicate of hand (though it could not match her Randvi's penmanship, how her runes poured from her ink strokes with ease and went on the parchment in beautiful, full strokes), and read it twice over, smiled at having cracked the code there, and returned up the hill. She bothered not to say a word to the others (a pension for surprise she had!), and hopped over the cold water to a protruding rock that overlooked the freezing pool beneath her. She need not her sight to know that somewhere down there it had to be, and with a welling up of spirit in her, she took a breath, and plunged into the cold embrace below. 

It shocked the onlookers and amused coquettish Bil to laughter and surprise! She reared back and laughed loudly, as Eivor found the little thing nestled in the dark sediment below. She came up before she froze herself dead, shook herself in a way most unceremonious or valient to get the blood running through her again and to shake off the liquid before it decided to freeze on her, and showed the thing to BIl. 

"This is your comb? However did you lose it down there?"

Bil gave her a look first of confusion, then a great affection washed into her eyes, and she stood, calling that the search is over and the item found. She bid her follow, and Eivor, dutiful and loyal as she is (and also, quite the glutton for reward, may I remind you) did as she asked. It was then that it was reveled the nature of this game, and it was just as it was told to her before. 

Her husband long dead, the widow Bil wanted naught a replacement for her good man, her love had been spent and speant well on her deceased beloved, and as such she had no more to give to another and wanted not their's. She had her love and lost him, but cherished him enough to never part him, even though they were bound in spirit. She told that this was but a end to justify the means of her human lust.

"Is a widow, or a widower, young or old, not entitled to the feel of a momentary heat? Are we not allowed to embrace in the throes of sex and those things that come with it, without giving our hand again? Or are we just to rot in despair forever more until our fated departure, meeting our lost love again in the afterlife, though but shells of who we used to be, in cold Nifleheim?" These questions she asked our favorite drengr, a sober look falling over her face. " _Pah_! I say to those that say the last. That I as a widow, am to be just a repressed woman, alone in my final days, without even the feel of another." She shook her head then quite bitterly, and it appeared to Eivor that that statement must have been spoken to her before and it offended her deeply. 

"But enough," She says, holds her hand for the comb. "You are my winner. You may keep the trinket if you like, and we end our meeting early, or, if you also like, I can comb your hair and while I do, we become acquainted. I will not force your hand either way."

Eivor had heard her words, heard her reasonings for this game and of her previous catches, but she did not immediately consider herself one of them. She agreed to the innocent sounding request, deft hands undoing her knots and tangles and twisting braids would do her some good before returning home or causing mischief elsewhere (sadly, she did not cause any here!), and what could possibly come from something as combing another's hair? It was practice to bathe together even, and that was not seen as dastardly or whorish or even a gateway into such behavior, and so this simple request was agreed upon. She did not mind hearing herself talk either!

But what happens next? A horrible thing, really! 

Bil's hands were soft, experienced in the craft of hair styling. She undid her braids slowly, stripped Eivor's hair of its affects, combed though it with as much care and caution as she could. She comb her hair in layers, let the lengths she had straightened out fall upon her shoulders and back, sight to see if you were not her known lover or her friend before her days of shaving her hair and marking her skin with Tove's fine tattoos! Eivor's hair parted down the middle, was fashioned with large waves that curled this way and that at the tips. Her hair was an even color, shone in the moonlight, the sunlight, and torch light, and stopped just below the ball of her shoulders. Even with that small part above her ear shaved close, her hair, like nature, was undaunted and kept its state, falling over her scar and markings as if there as not a chunk missing at all. Bil seemed to enjoy her hair, and took to smoothing the locks with her palms, ran her fingers through it to test her skill, and soon returned everything to the way it was, though tightened her smaller braids so that they not unravel. She replaced the silver loops, strung the beads, and finished with the heavy braid that would rest on Eivor's broad shoulder.

How innocent! For a time, this was of the most innocence! 

But please, we know that an issue came to pass.

The issue, was that Bil was smitten with this beautiful, battle scarred viking, and felt so short of breath and so red with blush, that her hands shook without anything to occupy them, and her lashes fluttered most lustfully. As Eivor spoke on her crew and their last grand journey, Bil chewed her lip hungrily. She had never been one to take a woman for a lover, but there was a strangeness to Eivor that excited her. A sort of ambiguity of self and person, that the eye alone could tell defined this drengr. She tred the line so well between man and woman, despite her looks and her voice, that it did not take much imagination to imagine Eivor as a man, which somehow excited her even more, to have found a lover for second at the most, that possessed both of the sensual, arousing features of both sexes. 

Eivor had the gentleness of voice and tone of a woman, the soft skin, the fatty slopes of a mature, polished shieldmaiden, but also held the strength and domineering nature of a man. She was strong but not bulky, solid where it counted, her jaw was sharp and neck perfectly strong, even though it had such a wound upon it. Her chest was small, but as if they were the pectorals of a strong man, jutted and sat fine about her chest.

Bil wondered if the warrior was lined with hair on her stomach, if she raised her voice to a feminine lilt when pleasured, if it lowered when she dominated her partner. Did she groan or moan? Sing or sigh? Did she prefer to give pleasure or take it? Where, oh where, was Eivor upon the line of man and woman? Why, and how, did she sit upon the space between them and keep them in balance so well? Did she even know how she appeared to others? Or was it just Bil, who had been keen to this?

Why was it that Eivor transcended the norm? Why was she, or he, or _them...so_ enticing? Why did it feel so right to call this person anything and it not sound offensive on the tongue? By the gods, why was this person so arousing?

It had been without warning, that Bil's excitement got the better of her, and she had begun asking these questions. They were not met with much explanation, for Eivor was very readily the type that simply did not care about who or what a person was, let alone herself, so long as they approached her with respect. Being a woman, being a man, being "in between" never crossed this jarl's mind, she was simply Eivor of the Raven clan. Eivor Jarl or Jarlskona, it didn't matter at all. Eivor is Eivor. Eivor is _he, she, them--_ all of them at once and none of them at all. There were days, I tell you, that she would even forget. 

Eivor tells her, however: "So long, I have been called _'woman'_ , it does not bother me. When I was small, I was unsure of what I was-- girls wished that I were a boy, so I would tell them that I was. Boys wanted me to be a girl, so I would tell them that I was. I was a boy when I played with them, I was a girl when I was being punished by my father. Such titles mean little when they are so easily shucked off for another and not bother you or your friends. Easier all the more when you have a brother that wants a little one to be rough with and a little sister to protect. I suggest you assume what was needed of me most often." Eivor smiles at Bil, as if she has relayed a great secret to a close friend. "Call me what you want, but do not call me a liar."

"Would it be alright if I wanted to call you a lover for tonight?" She asked rather boldly, looking up.at Eivor from beneath her thick lashes and giving a playful smile. Eivor's brows pressed in question.

"Me?" Eivor asked, dumbfounded. "I... cannot. I have someone already. That I love most greatly with all my heart."

"I see, as I once did. It is not so shameful though to let your gaze wonder." She plays with the hem of her dress, it rises over her thin ankles, her fingers long and slender, bunch the fabric as she pretends to play with the cloth. They are silvery pale in the moonlight. Eivor remembers Randvi. Remembers that on her left ankle, she has a large bruise that turned greem before they left. She remembers, many thoughts quickly in her mind as Bil tries her advances-- Randvi got her bruise from stepping over Mouse. Her foot caught the leather ball the wolf had been chewing before falling asleep, it slipped from under her, hit the wall, and bounced back again her ankle. She closes her eyes and sees Randvi.

"He will not know."

" _She_ \- and it is not about that. It is my soul at stake. I would give my all to her so that she be happiest of all, I will not shake her trust in me. I would rather be bound as Loki with venom splashing my face." _'My Randvi,'_ She desperately wants to say, _'Is the only I would risk it all for.'_ But she doesn't. Bil did not seem defeated, though mildly perturbed. 

"That is sweet." She tells her as she takes the comb that started it all. "I will not press you anymore then. But may I ask that you comb _my_ hair?" 

Eivor should have ended it there, returned to the longhouse and her old room, and scurry home from this woman, but she is such good company, she believes, and so she stays. She takes the comb and lets down Bil's hair. Laugh, if you will, at the fact that this woman so forgettable that not even your narrator can describe her in detail, but know that she is a common beauty. Her skin of a silver tone, her veins a stark blue under her skin and her cheeks a tinge of pink that can be found on blooming white flowers that after a great accident of germination, was to grow with a splatter of color at its core. Her hair was much longer, fell down her back until it touched the rug they sat on, the ends frayed like roots. She parted the hair, and saw the bend of her spine along the curve of her neck, and remembered Randvi again. Eivor had bitten her in that spot once in play. She felt the urge, most greatly, to kiss that blank spot, leave a red mark as she did her good Randvi in England. 

It had, indeed, been Eivor's fault. I spare the details for brevity's sake, and hope you mark this: Eivor had combed and combed, her mind wansered so often to sweet Randvi, that she wound herself into a hazy stupor of want. How else to appease that quickly, than with the person that wanted you beforehand?

When she awoke, Eivor did not feel satisfied. No. Not at all. She gazed upon Bil's form, and became sick. Homesick, lovesick, mindsick--all sickness that poisoned the mind and had no cure-- she became afflicted with it. Her stomach became knots and kinked chains, her mind did grow cloudy and pound with a headache, regret travelled her blood like a poison. She jumped up, frightened herself as if she were monster created, and ran to collect her crew. She would not stay here any longer, for just being in the place made her sick.

She found Vili in the longhouse, they gathered everyone, and pushed them all into the ship. They could not stay! She must get home to her beacon, her ray of sunshine, and try to rid herself of the midnight that fell upon her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me?? Explaining (barely) why i use she/her for Eivor deapite being a clear pusher of NB Eivor?? Less likely than you think sksks. I firmly believe in She/They Eivor in general since i started the game (as a He/ They transman myself sksksgsn) but im also open to Any pronouns Eivor (which ig is technically Genderfluid but i think what im describing here is that she simply does not care what pronouns you use instead of "i am a man today. I am a woman today") (GF ppl im sorry if that sounds offensive i didn't mean to but i hope you get what i mean. The reason i predominantly use She/Her during this fic is to make it easier on myself as I'm writing so i don't confused but best believe i am on the She/ They Eivor longship. Yes indeedee.
> 
> Im sorry if you were expecting a complete rendition of the entire Bil quest, but i feel as if you've done it, you're already familiar with what they say and everything, and if you arent but reading anyway, you are barely "spoiled" for the thing as i did indeed change the dialogue but tried to keep it close to canon (ah fan fic freedom lol). Plus, idk i wanted to damn eivor a little more lol later on (not too much) and to have it hurt her a lot more than it probably should ahaha.
> 
> Anyway, *blows a kiss* for you dear readers and bearing with this strange story of mine, once again birthed from my own guilt! I hope you stick with me to end!

**Author's Note:**

> Please be mean to me in your thoughts bc im really trying my best not to give this a bad ending. Pray for me y'all sksksk  
> Also i think i deserve a gold glitter star bc this fic as a whole will most likely be the shortest "serious" fic I've ever written :o gasp and the shortest I've ever completed. I promise i wont abandon this this fic is literally my therapy session with myself about someone in my life. Only one person knows who tho sksksksk  
> \---  
> IM SORRY IM SORRY IM LOOKING FOR SPELLONG ERRORS PLEASE FORGIVE ME •°°•°>.<•°°•


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